A multipath routing protocol for wireless sensor network for mine security monitoring

Underground mining is a hazardous industrial activity. In order to provide a safe working environment for miners, a Wireless Sensor Network (WSN) technology has been used for security monitoring. It can provide a wide range of surveillance with a relatively low cost. In this study, an Energy-Based Multipath Routing (EBMR) protocol is proposed, which considers residual energy capacity and link quality in choosing hops and routing paths. Hops and paths with a high residual energy capacity and link quality will have the best chance to be selected to transmit data packages. Since the EBMR stores several routes in the routing table, when the current path fails, another path will be chosen to fulfill the task immediately. In this way, EBMR improves reliability and decrease time latency. Compared to AOMDV and REAR, EBMR decreases time latency by 51% and 12%.